Stairs that make a room
/Stairs. They are a necessity in two-story houses but they’ve become so… boring! Remember back in the day when they were the focal point in the home with their elaborate curves and stunning details? They were the showstoppers. Now they are utilitarian and just “there.” That was the case in our living room. And to make things worse, they are literally in our living room. Take a look.
Yep.. right there in the room. They also are carpeted which I hate. I’ve stared at them for the last two years trying to decide to what to do. And then it hit me. Let me just say I have stayed away from shiplap. I hate the word. I’m tired of seeing it EVERYWHERE. As you can imagine, being a realtor means I’m in a LOT of houses so I see it all the time. But maybe, just maybe, I could make it work.
As usual the Hubs and I headed to Home Depot and grabbed what we needed. Surprisingly, it didn’t take that long. Projects go much faster with his help.
The first look was very traditional farmhouse which isn’t exactly the look I’m going for. What is the look I’m going for? Heck, I don’t even know. Does “what Jill likes” count? That’s definitely what I’m going for.
Now, those of you who have followed me for a while know one thing - I love black. I’ve been using it for decades. It’s definitely my fave color. So I decided, let’s do black. So we did.
Painting it was a beast, but worth it. What was next? Getting rid of those carpeted stairs. If any of you have done this, you know that you have to cut the edges or lip off the stairs when replacing them with wood. That was fun.
This was one of those times I was so thankful the hubs was with me. And just FYI… we used a sawsall to cut the lip off. It was very messy and back breaking work, but totally worth it.
The next thing we did was add the oak treads and risers. We were able to grab those at Lowe’s.
They are fairly simple to add. There are probably hundreds of blogs and You Tube videos with instructions on how to do it, so I won’t recreate the wheel.
Typically, staining would be the next step. And it was - a month or two later. I was having a hard time deciding what to do. I didn’t want the dark stain on the bottom step because I liked the contrast. I definitely didn’t want oak. I bought numerous samples and eventually landed on one that was a pretty good match to the floors. It took about two weeks to stain them because I had to do every other step (so the fam could use the steps). And, of course, then I had to poly them so they were protected. I added some trim to the skirt and voila!
I also added trim to the skirt to give it more style. I used the same trim on the edges because I have rounded corners and it needed to be finished out a bit better.
The shiplap is painted BM Wrought Iron but color matched into Sherwin Williams. I just like Sherwin Williams better :)
All of the shiplap was purchased at Home Depot. Total project cost was around $1500 - which is A LOT, but $900 of that were the wooden treads and risers. Now the stairs make the room instead of being an afterthought!
